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Monday, December 3, 2012

This week over at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog, I put forth the challenge of using multiple photos on layouts. I'm still working on my Scotland scrapbook and have so many photos that I want to include that all focus on one day or one event while I was over there but need to put on the same layout otherwise I risk having a scrapbook that's a million pages long! LOL

I decided to use all our travelling photos for this layout. We spent about 24 hours travelling and were able to fly from Ottawa to Toronto to Amsterdam and then finally to Glasgow.

Here it is!

I didn't have a map to include on my project, but I wanted to still show the route travelled so to speak, so I stamped out a dashed line and "star" stamped the 4 cities.

Down in the bottom I added photos from our flights. When coming in to land in The Netherlands I nearly died I was so excited when we flew over these gorgeous red and yellow tulip fields! Then from Amsterdam to Glasgow we flew over the Dutch coastline where we could see the beaches on The North Sea.

Another highlight was in Scotland itself when we came down from above the clouds and on the horizon we could see the snowcapped mountains and below us all the green fields.

I also ran out of Kraft paper and have been having a really hard time trying to find anywhere that sells it so I used Distress Ink on white cardstock to create the background paper.

Anyways, make sure to head on over to PGCB to join in and check out all the multi photo layouts the girls created!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Challenge time again over at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog! With the upcoming holiday season upon us it's only fitting that this Monday's challenge is to create something that is Winter or Christmas themed!

I have been working on my Christmas cards for this year....and very quickly running out of time before they need to be in the mail!

I have been a Club Member over at The Stamps of Life by Stephanie Barnard for the last year now. I think it was the Septemeber or October stamp set this year was a Christmas themed stamp, so I decided to use those for the cards this year. Using green Distress Ink I stamped my trees and then cut them out. The trunks I stamped directly onto the card base and coloured them in with Copics. To add some Christmas sparkle, I used Stickles on the blue trees and the red tree is Glossy Accents with red glitter sprinkled over top. The 3 stars I stamped with yellow ink and then outlined black and cut out. They are coated in Glossy Accents and dusted with some pearlescent glitter!

To add a little someting because the card was still looking too white I added a strip of washi along the bottom.

I better get crafting! I've only completed one card so far (Jeepers I gotta get my butt in gear!)Soon they'll be in the post on their way to family and friends!

Be sure to head on over to The Paper Girls Challenge Blog to see the Team's projects and to find out how you can enter your own Winter/Christmas project too!!

A few weeks ago we celebrated our wee one's 3rd Birthday. First of all I cannot believe how fast those 3 years have zoomed by! Holy Smokes!

To celebrate we invited our family over for a Mickey Mouse Birthday Party. Mr Man is super into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse right now so he was so excited when we let him choose his theme this year!

I even have to admit that I was just as excited as our munchkin was, I think because this year he actually understood what was going on and everyday leading up to his special day he would ask, "Mama is it my Happy Birthdays yet?"

Using my non fancy cake making skills I somehow managed to pull together a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse using rice krispy treats covered in coloured fondant, and with a quick order with the online Disney Store, was able to add Mickey and his Friends to the cake too.

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Our Munchkin's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Cake

Thanks to Pinterest I found these uber cute Mickey Mouse Oreos. They were a bit finicky to make but they were so tasty and absolutely adorable! (and after all the work and melted chocolate coating my kitchen after making them....we forgot to take them out of the freezer the day of the party!! Nooooo!!) hahahaha so we had almost 3 dozen Mickey Mouse cookies to snack on for days afterwards ;)

Mickey Mouse Oreo Cookies

After the party was all said and done, a few days later I sat down and grabbing some black, red and white cardstock I made some Thank You Cards to send to our guests. They were pretty easy to make and didn't take too long. I traced and cut out the Mickey Mouse Silhouette and then glued a red "pocket" on the bottom half to look like his red shorts. I only adhered the outer edges so that I could put the thank you note inside.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Welcome to another awesome Blog Hop with The Paper Girls Challenge Blog! I hope you have enjoyed seeing everyone's altered item projects so far! Everyone truly created some amazing pieces! You should be arriving here from Charissa's blog and her altered treasure box for her little one! If you're just joining in on the blog hop now, click here to start at the very beginning at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog and to get the scoop on how you can win this pretty sweet prize!

Don't forget, for one entry into the draw, make your way through the entire hop and leave a comment on each blog.

And with that, here is my altered project....

It all started earlier this summer when Dan, myself and my Sister in Law bought a cottage. When we arrived it was pretty clear that the previous owners had left everything for us which included some furniture, kitchen items....and their old decor. Enter old picture frame with equally as old postcard.

I couldn't help myself, I loved the solid wood frame and although it's a bit faded I do really enjoy the "art nouveau" style of this postcard (and le 30 Juillet just happens to be my birthday...) so I had to hang on to this knowing eventually I'd make something of it.

Before - The picutre frame and postcard as we found it at the cottage

When the blog hop idea was mentioned I thought it would be a perfect item to alter. I wanted to keep the postcard and the frame but revamp it just a little bit so that we can return it to the cottage next summer. The whole idea being to keep something "old" from the cottage and make it new and just our own!

After - more colourful after adding scrapbooking paper and washi tape.

I started by cleaning all the dust and cobwebs off the frame and cleaning the glass. Then I sanded down the wood on the frame to smooth out some of the bumps and crevices. To return the wood to its darker colour I used a dropper full of Distress Ink Refill ink mixed with a little bit of water and smoothed it on with a paintbrush and left it to dry.

The inner portions of the frame I covered using some washi tape and to make it a bit more durable I sealed it with a couple layers of Mod Podge Matte.

Washi tape border and wood stained with Distress Ink

The postcard I was intrigued to find out more about. On the back all that was printed was that it was from New York City. So I googled everything that was printed on the front. Turns out it is a print by the artist Marcel Vertes who was a well known artist in the 1920's and 1930's. He was known for his paintings of Paris street life, circuses and cabarets. He moved from Paris to New York during WWII and returned to Paris 10 years later. In the 30's he was commissioned to print a promotional booklet about Deauville which was a resort town outside of Paris where the wealthy would go to get away from it all and it boasted a grand circus!

Well with the history lesson over! LOL on with the project! I wanted to keep the postcard and pick colours to accent it. Basically, wanted to dress it up a bit more than just a postcard in a frame. Using Mr. Huey's mist, paper, stamps and washi tape, I created a quick "layout", if you will. There's not too much dimension because it has to fit underneath the glass, but I think it works!

With that we have a little piece of old cottage to go back and be hung up of the walls so we have a little "souvenir" from the past. Thank you so much for stopping by!!

From here, you're heading over to Amber's blog to check out her beautiful project using leaves and twine.

Monday, October 15, 2012

I got my butt in gear and was able to prepare something for The Paper Girls Challenge latest post. This time around, Judy, gave us this image to draw inspiration from to create a card or layout.

I loved the colours, so decided to focus mostly on that. Using Distress Inks, I blended a background together to make a Birthday Card.

I also used a background stamp "inked" with shimmer mist to create some subtle texture and some extra shine/glitter to the card.

I wanted my contrast colour to be grey (I am a sucker for the pink and grey combo) so grabbed some washi and some brads that coordinated and used my grey PrismaColor Pencils to colour in the sentiment.

Be sure to check out The Paper Girls Challenge Blog to find out how you can join our challenges and to check out the beautiful projects the other Team Members created!

Monday, August 20, 2012

This morning before work I had some time to myself to squeeze in some crafting. I thought I'd work on the cards from the Design Principles Class that I'm taking. These were two quick cards that focus on the theories and principles that we learned in the first class.

The first card here focuses on things we learned about colour and line. I never really thought too much about colour before, but having being introduced now to the colour wheel and how to use it properly it's pretty darn cool!

Texture is something we usually assume is tangible, in that it's the way something feels to the touch, but in this case it was cool to learn how to create visual texture. I've never used this technique before with my copics. It's hard to photograph, but on the present there are subtle stripes on the blue wrapping and brighter pink dots on the ribbon.

Textured colouring. The sequins were part of Britta's Design Principles Kit

There's still lots of time to grab a seat for Britta's class! Head over HERE to find out more details!

It's challenge time again! I feel like I haven't participated in one in a little bit. (summer hols)

Our team member, Amber, challenged us to get messy with our projects. We could use mists, inks, paints, anything we could think that would be fun and messy to use!

At first I wasn't sure if I would have time to put something together but this challenge does coincide with an art journal/reference book I have been working on alongside an online class I've been taking.

Right now at Britta Swiderski's blog, there is an online class called Design Principles. It's a fantastic class that she is teaching all about the definitions of design and how to apply them into crafting. Each class we make a tag to put together into a booklet so that we can go back and reference what we have been learning. If you're interested in joining check out her blog for info --->HERE

Starting out as plain manilla tags, I used many colours of Distress Inks, water, stamps, embossing powder and washi tape to decorate them. I made the seven tags over the weekend while catching up from vacation so the end result was very messy, inky and stained fingers!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

It's been quite a while since I've done any crafting. We've been busy this summer! Aren't we all? lol
At the beginning of June an opportunity arose to become cottage owners and we were absolutely thrilled when everything went through! So most of July and August have been spent by the lake relaxing, boating and swimming (and cleaning and organizing our new space!)....but more about that soon....

About a year ago I came across Britta's youtube channel and I have loved watching all of her tutorials. The first ones I was introduced to were the No Stress Distress Inks series which spawned my love of my Distress Inks! Since then I have learned lots of different bits and pieces and was so excited to hear when she was going to start an online Design Class!

Growing up I never really considered myself overly artistic in the traditional crafty sense. I loved playing music on piano and flute and adored being on stage with various theatre classes but when it came down to crafty things....eh....lets just say I never was the one to excel. So all through school I pored over maths and sciences to get through college and left the creative things to the side. (See here)

Since I started paper crafting I've been stretching that part of my brain again and love it!! I may not be amazing at it, but I am hoping that the Design Principles classes with Britta will teach me some new techniques and understand the basics in designing my cards and layouts.

So far we are six classes into the course and I am loving how much I have learned so far! Over the weekend I played catch up a bit. Summer holidays have kept me from crafting so I've been reading along and watching the videos and soon I hope to find some time to apply what we've been learning in class. Along with the classes and tutorials we're also working on creating a quick reference guide book. Each class has a tag that we can use kind of like study notes that we can go back to at anytime, and it kinda looks like an art journal too which is fun!

Here's my tags so far:

Title Page

Class One

Class 2

Class 3

Class 4

Class 5

Class 6

The Whole Booklet So Far

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If you're interested in joining in the classes you can still participate and have access to them all. Head on over to Britta Swiderski's blog and all the info is there :)
My plan soon is to have a post with the cards that I make that apply the principles we have been learning.
Stay tuned!!

Monday, July 23, 2012

Charity challenged us all to create a layout or card using some form of mesh. Initially I thought of the mesh that you find in the produce sections with the onions or the foam mesh on Japanese Pears, but try as I might and three local grocery stores later I was still without any mesh!
While at work at the hospital over the weekend it suddenly dawned on me....there's more kinds of mesh than just produce mesh....What is gauze? It's just pieces of cotton weaved into a loose mesh! As soon as I arrived home I raided our first aid kit and found a long spool of mesh bandaging gauze and the creative wheels started turning!

I unrolled a long piece of gauze and I knew that I wanted to tie it onto a card the same way you would a piece of ribbon. Staying with the First Aid theme I used the bandaid stamp from Lawn Fawn, grabbed a couple copics and put together a "Speed Recovery" card. The white gauze was too striking/gaunt next too the kraft card base so I used some Glimmer Mist to dye it brown.

Monday, July 9, 2012

This time at The Paper Girls Blog, Kristy, came up with a great challenge to use rub ons on a layout or card.
I find I don't use rub-ons very often and as such, I thought I didn't have any in my stash. I rooted around in one of my drawers and found these Monogram Rub-Ons by Colorbok. I have had them for ages and have never had the perfect project to use them yet.

For this challenge I decided to make a gretting card instead of a layout. Using the rub-ons, I created a collage on plain white cardstock. There were some circular monograms that I rubbed onto paper and then cut out and using dimensional adhesive arranged them over top of the collage. A quick sentiment, some twine, et voila! A quick and simple card!

Head on over to The Paper Girls Challenge Blog to see all the other great projects that were created by our amazing Team!

Monday, June 18, 2012

I loved this mosaic (and still do) when I pinned it on Pinterest a few months ago. I just love how the colours are happy and vibrant and how much movement there is. It took me a while to organize how I wanted to translate that across into a layout.

I chose a photo of my son and I on a tire swing from last summer. The shot was taken mid swing and I wanted to capture the movement in the photo and relate it back to the flow and movement in the mosaic. I also wanted to pull inspiration from all the curves in the mosaic, so on my layout I used papers with circular patterns, I cut them into rectangles to contrast the shape a little bit and tried to "swing" them behind my photo. I also tried to layer them in a similar manner to the very centre of the mosaic.
Lastly, I created a small "mosaic" of spiralled twine circles to follow my circular theme.
I didn't want my title to be all one colour, but I didn't have a colour that really matched the rest of my layout so the yellow "swingin'" Thickers were inked with a couple different Distress Inks to customize them as best as I could.

Here's a quick and easy tutorial on how I made my twine spirals ----> HERE!

I hope you head on over to our Challenge Blog! I can't wait to see all the different projects!

Monday, June 4, 2012

I feel like I haven't posted anything here for a while. Life has been busy and crafting has had to take a back seat for the last few weeks. With new work schedules, finding child care, slicing off my knuckle and trying to keep the house straight it's been crazy busy.
For me, scrapbooking and paper crafting is my "me" time and for the last few weeks, without that time I have felt like something is missing. I can't really say I've been in a bad mood or grumpy, but just felt out of sorts. Last week when I was able to scrap a few layouts again I finally felt relaxed! It was awesome to spend some time being creative and I was able to put together a layout for The Paper Girls' Ninth Challenge!

One of our amazing Team Members, Erica, challenged us to use Subway Art. I went and opened up my Silhouette SD and created a template of different fonts and cut out words associated with a trip we took to a local farm last fall. I used the negative template as a stencil and made my own patterned paper with Distress Inks. At first I only had the coloured words but felt that the paper looked a bit empty, so I went back with my stencil and using black ink filled in the rest, leaving a pop of colour in the bottom corner. To add a bit of dimension I outlined a few of the letters with Diamond Stickles.

When it was all said and done here is the finished layout!

Be sure to head on over to The Paper Girls Challenge Blog to see the fantastic layouts created by the PGCB Team and to check out the details so that you can enter your own Subway Art layout for a chance to win a prize!